If Republicans in the U.S. hope to win the presidency next year, they had better find a candidate who, like Mr. Sarkozy, is prepared to stand for very bold, very dramatic and very systematic change. Not only that, but they had better make the case that the leftwing Democrat likely to be nominated represents the failed status quo: the bureaucracies that are failing, the social policies that are failing, the high tax policies that are failing and the weakness around the world that has failed so badly in protecting the U.S. —Former Speaker of the House and presidential wannabe Newt Gingrich, writing in "A French Lesson for America's Grand Old Party"

It sounds like Gingrich's "Contract for America" revisited, a plan that revealed what some of the nation's nastiest people can come up with once they get organized. Bill Clinton dubbed it the "Contract on America."

Tags: * Newt Gingrich presidential election Republican candidate election 2008 campaign strategy